This past Saturday Sky High Skateboard Shop celebrated 30 years of existence. Sky High has been a key component to skating in this city for as long as I can remember. Endless years of skate Jams, trips, video premieres, high fives, and beers. The shop means everything! Here’s to 30 more!

There’s been a recent change in the neighborhood. My neighbor has had a toilet sitting near his fire pit the entire time I’ve lived here. The other day, to my surprise, I saw him carefully hitting it with a hammer and putting the pieces in a bag. Word is still out whether or not this helps our hurts my property value. I’ll report back when the city sends me my yearly property assessment.

Nick “Sleepy” Mistele with a layback wallie on this Harley orange barrier. He had never done this before, but I think the power of the Harley Hog, bald eagles, and America powered him enough to pump over this Boban relation. Technically, I’d say a concrete Jersey barrier might be a cousin to the Boban, but not a direct relation. Same genus, different species. We call the plastic orange barriers Bobans because that’s all classic wiskate patron Boban would skate while working at the skate park. Mini ramp? Nope, Boban. Pyramid? Nope, Boban. Got it?

Hi-8 evidence of the Boban connection. It’s real. It’s true. Circa 2001. 17 years of calling Bobans Bobans. Mark it down. Update your dictionary. I wish I could recapture all of these old Hi-8 tapes, I really don’t know how I lost the files. If someone has a digital 8 camera they’d lend me, slide into my DMs.

Max lived here. Not exactly here, not on a backside smith on the ramp. That’d be something. Imagine sitting there, just stuck in a smith. All day and night. “Help!” You’d have to call Uber Eats to receive nutrition. “Yeah, come on in. The door is open. I’ll be here, I’m stuck in this smith.”

Max has always wanted to be able to frontside flip on transition like John Rattray or Daniel Stemper. This night was his night. Several melt downs, several liters of sweat lost. It was his, he endured, victorious!

I made poor Vince do this smith grind tail grab scores of times. He never complained. I kept failing. He kept doing it. What a guy.

A long dog with a long dog. Sleepy, but cool. Imagine having a pillow that looked like your own species. There actually is such a thing. I guess this is Francois’ “Waifu Pillow”! Although there is no sexual angle to this relationship. Pure, innocent, like freshly fallen snow. Is it possible for an ex pro athlete to be that innocent? You might have a point. He had to have the killer instinct. “No Fear!”. 6 wins to his name. Look it up! BGR Crush. I bet he’s had a groupie or two in his time.

Last week, a gaggle of dudes took a trip to the Biggest Apple in America, New York City. The “Canal Street Gamblers” were split into two sects, one in Manhattan and one in Queens. The Manhattan sect, headquartered in the LES, consisted of myself, Jon Rock, Pizzy, Max, Rickaby, Sleepy, and Vince. Meanwhile the Queens sect, stationed near Flushing, was a small trio consisting of Juke, Harry, and T-Lalk. The weather was perfect, the city was alive, and Pizzy was the unanimous MVP (despite an accumulation of 57 red cards). I purchased a little digital camera to document the happenings. Here’s my POV of the situation.The Canal Street Gamblers’ HQ in Manhattan was prime. We were 2 Blocks away from Labor Skateshop, and had a plethora of skate spots and slice vendors within a stones throw. Also, a great place for data mining after the consumption of slices!

The LES skatepark was also a few blocks away, which was a good warm-up spot. Here Taylor (Tyler) Lalk does a BS Smith across the rainbow-ledge-dealio. The youngest member of the CSG, Tay really showed why he’s an important piece to the syndicate. Beyond the stunts he did on his skateboard, he was an integral part of the smaller things going on (scratch offs, beer, pizza, not getting red cards).

Did you know New York was the capital of the United States for a brief period?

Sleepy Mistele, the bulldog of the CSG only broke one board throughout the trip. Quite a feat for him. Here the Bulldog does a Pop Shove Nosegrind on a smurf styled picnic table.

Above we have two common operations of the CSG while skateboarding wasn’t happening. Grabbing bumpers and hanging in front of the headquarters. The owners of the corner store next door were very kind to us, cheerfully greeting us when we popped in every 15 minutes. I managed to win $50 on a scratch off, proving it was possible, and only fueling our fire to live up to our namesake.

Here the Canal Street Gamblers discuss future operations, and share advice on how to not avoid red cards. I.e. “The Johnson Side Eye”.

Everyone was burnt at the end of each day, but we still managed to hold down the HQ, making our capo proud.

That’s all from the POV cam. A ton of stunts went down beyond my measly few skateboarding pictures show, so stay tuned for more content. A huge thanks to 1st gen wiskate-poster, and Labor skateshop owner, James for holding us down and Smith grinding Sherman 10 probably 17 years ago.

For five years Matt (BMAN) had an ongoing love affair with this over the rail into the bank. The run up is terrible. After you land, if you can’t ride it out to the right, you run into a fence. She’s a harsh mistress. But BMAN loved her anyway. She gave, she took, she treated him wrong. True poetry, true love. Fritsche.

America’s birthday! Nothing says “USA!” like dogs, Odouls, and Zima.Brothas from different mothas! Pizz and Chase twinned it up at this years BBQ. “No time for slippin’!” It’s unknown if they communicated the wardrobe situation before hand or not, but Pizzy did take up smoking for the rest of his life to pose for this picture.

Newcomer on the scene, Francois, was pretty leery of all the celebration, but he did manage to make a few appearances and meet a few dogs. Did you know the French were some of the greatest contributors to our winning the Revolutionary War against those tyrants, the English?? Viva La France!

Is NA beer patriotic? Who am I to say? Who are you to say? Patriotism lives in the heart and soul of man. On the way to work the other day I saw a sticker on a car that said “GOD, GUNS, BEARDS”. Is that patriotism? Would god like guns? I suppose he can be pretty vengeful. Though, I suppose it depends if you’re asking Old Testament or New Testament god. Beards, obviously, that goes without saying. But do these things actually have anything to do with America? Some might say yes. Some might say no.

The last time I tasted Zima was probably 1994, Allison A’s party in the subdivision near the grade school. Probably threw back 1.5 of those babies and was feelin’ fine! It was great to relive those times gone by. Pre internet. Pre juuling. My keyboard still does not have a working “j” key, so I had to google “uuling” and use the copy and paste feature of my computer.

After all of that celebrating, I suppose it was time to skate.

Have I retired from filming? Is it possible? I think sometimes it would be nice. I retired from filming for this week at least. Here’s some photos instead!Max was on a tear. He had already been doing scores of frontside crooked grinds before I arrived. He continued doing them for photos, like the one shown above. About two hours later he decided he’d film a line starting with a frontside crook. He couldn’t do it anymore. The moral of the story is, save your frontside crooks like you might save quarters your grandma sends you on your birthday. You might never know when you will need them.

Is this a reflection of the state of our society? Can a skate photo be ART? I think it’s probably only a picture of Max doing a backside noseblunt near some rubble. It’s pretty neat he was able to do this, as you might have noticed, you have to ollie onto that slab first, thus making the trick much more difficult.

Sleepy was recently featured on Instagram looking particularly GQ. Does he have a future as a male model?

Sleepy was taking this backside 180 nosegrind coast to coast, and then to everyones surprise, added a 180 out. I had to get super close for my attempt at a Slap style photo, and it made me very scared. But everything worked out in the end, and my safety remained intact.

Here’s a picture from a far away camera of the same trick. I’ve been using this really old 85mm manual focus Nikon lens, and its quite enjoyable. The contrast is really low, probably due to the crappy lens coating of the era, but it looks pretty nice.

If I had been in Slap position during this naughty flat line, I’d be writing this from my grave. My S/O would be rich from my life insurance pay out. My dog could afford college.

Hanley Juke arrived and wasted no time doing several of these nollie backside flips. He wasn’t impressed with himself though, “that’s my go-to”. I told him it’s a nice go-to. Then we hugged.

Rick Nasty did a little work on this backside flip. He wanted to give up a few times, but he persevered and in the end felt success. Now that is the American Dream. Literal boot strap pulling.

Finally, Brick was sitting off to the side, unsure of himself. I think maybe he had some low “T”. He must have visited New Male, because he busted a nice no comply and everyone was happy. The end.